The Birth of Nicaraguan Sign Language: Reading Answers & Explanations
IELTS Reading practice test · 13 questionsAcademichard
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About this passage
The passage opens: “For most of the twentieth century, deaf children in Nicaragua grew up in near-total isolation from one another. Scattered across a poor and largely rural country, they seldom met another deaf person, and there was no shared sign language for them to learn.”
- Passage length: about 803 words
- Questions: 13
- Question types: Matching Information, Sentence Completion, Multiple Choice — Multiple Answers
“The Birth of Nicaraguan Sign Language” is an original IELTS-style practice passage written by IELTS-Bank. It is not taken from an official IELTS or Cambridge test, so these answers only apply to our version.
Answer key at a glance
The Birth of Nicaraguan Sign Language answers with explanations
Questions 1–6: Matching Information
The passage has six paragraphs, A-F. Which paragraph contains the following information? Write the correct letter, A-F.
- A. Paragraph A
- B. Paragraph B
- C. Paragraph C
- D. Paragraph D
- E. Paragraph E
- F. Paragraph F
- 1
a reference to the failure of an attempt to teach speech
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Answer: Paragraph B
Why: Paragraph B mentions the failure of teaching speech as teachers focused on lip-reading and speaking Spanish, which resulted in very little success, highlighting the unsuccessful attempt to teach speech to deaf children.
Where to find it · Paragraph B “In the classroom, teachers concentrated on training the pupils to read lips and to speak Spanish, an approach that produced very little success.”
- 2
the claim that grammatical complexity was added by the youngest signers
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Answer: Paragraph D
Why: Paragraph D is correct because it explains that the youngest signers added consistent word order and grammatical devices, enhancing the language's complexity beyond what the older pupils had initially developed.
Where to find it · Paragraph D “Instead they tightened and regularised it, adding consistent word order and grammatical devices that the first generation had never used.”
- 3
a description of how deaf people lived before the schools existed
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Answer: Paragraph A
Why: Paragraph A describes how deaf children in Nicaragua lived in isolation before the schools, using unique home signs within their families, which limited their communication and prevented interaction with other deaf individuals.
Where to find it · Paragraph A “For most of the twentieth century, deaf children in Nicaragua grew up in near-total isolation from one another.”
- 4
the moment an outside researcher became involved
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Answer: Paragraph E
Why: Paragraph E is correct because it mentions that in 1986 an American linguist, Judy Kegl, was invited to investigate the Nicaraguan sign language, marking the involvement of an outside researcher.
Where to find it · Paragraph E “In 1986 an American linguist, Judy Kegl, was invited to investigate, and she and her colleagues gradually realised that they were watching something almost never available to science: the birth of a brand-new language, arising with no adult model to copy.”
- 5
the reason such a situation could not be created deliberately
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Answer: Paragraph F
Why: The situation could not be created deliberately because the spontaneous and natural development of the Nicaraguan Sign Language among children was an organic process that emerged without adult intervention or planning.
Where to find it · Paragraph F “For that reason the language of the Managua schools is often described as a natural experiment, a rare gift to science thrown up by circumstance rather than contrived in any laboratory.”
- 6
an account of an early signing system that lacked consistent rules
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Answer: Paragraph C
Why: Paragraph C describes an early signing system among the oldest pupils as variable and inconsistent, lacking settled grammatical machinery, which aligns with the question's focus on a system without consistent rules.
Where to find it · Paragraph C “It was variable and inconsistent: signs differed from one child to the next, word order was loose, and it lacked the settled grammatical machinery that lets a language express fine distinctions reliably.”
Questions 7–12: Sentence Completion
Complete the sentences below using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
- 7
Before the schools opened, each deaf child invented a private set of gestures called ______.(max 2 words)
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Answer: home sign (also accepted: home signs / homesign)
Why: The answer is found in the first paragraph, which explains that before the schools opened, each deaf child created a unique set of gestures known as home sign to communicate within their family.
Where to find it · Paragraph A “Within their own families each child improvised a private set of gestures, known to researchers as home sign, to ask for food, name relatives and comment on daily events.”
- 8
The first special school for deaf children opened in the capital city, ______.(max 2 words)
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Answer: Managua
Why: The answer is found in the second paragraph, where it mentions that a special school for deaf children was established in the capital, Managua, in 1977.
Where to find it · Paragraph B “In 1977 a special school for deaf children opened in the capital, Managua, and a vocational centre followed a few years later.”
- 9
In the classroom, teachers tried to train the pupils to read lips and to speak ______.(max 2 words)
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Answer: Spanish
Why: The answer is found in paragraph B, where it states that teachers focused on teaching the students to read lips and speak the Spanish language.
Where to find it · Paragraph B “In the classroom, teachers concentrated on training the pupils to read lips and to speak Spanish, an approach that produced very little success.”
- 10
Linguists judged that the signing of the oldest pupils resembled a ______ rather than a full language.(max 2 words)
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Answer: pidgin
Why: The answer is found in section C, where it states that the signing system developed by the oldest pupils was considered by linguists to be similar to a pidgin rather than a complete language.
Where to find it · Paragraph C “The system that first emerged among the oldest pupils was, in the judgement of the linguists who later studied it, more like a pidgin than a full language.”
- 11
The younger children added consistent ______ that the first generation had never used.(max 2 words)
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Answer: word order
Why: The answer is found in paragraph D, where it explains that the younger children refined the signing system by incorporating consistent word order and grammatical elements that the older students had not used.
Where to find it · Paragraph D “Instead they tightened and regularised it, adding consistent word order and grammatical devices that the first generation had never used.”
- 12
To show which noun a verb refers to, signers make use of the ______ around the body.(max 2 words)
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Answer: space
Why: The passage does not provide information about signers using space around the body to show which noun a verb refers to.
Where to find it · Paragraph E “Among its most striking features was the use of the space around the signer's body to show which noun a verb referred to, a grammatical trick that the youngest signers used fluently but that the first generation had largely lacked.”
Question 13: Multiple Choice — Multiple Answers
Choose TWO letters, A-E.
- A. Grammar is mainly inherited from adult teachers.
- B. Humans have an inborn capacity to create language.
- C. Spoken language is superior to sign language.
- D. The youngest learners drove the growth of grammar.
- E. Sign languages are merely gestures without grammar.
- 13
Which TWO conclusions does the case of Nicaraguan Sign Language support? Choose TWO letters.
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Answer: B — Humans have an inborn capacity to create language.; D — The youngest learners drove the growth of grammar.
Why: The case of Nicaraguan Sign Language supports that humans have an inborn capacity to create language, as seen when children developed a structured language from inconsistent signs, and that the youngest learners drove the growth of grammar by regularizing and enriching the language.
Where to find it · Paragraph F “Because the children were never taught a sign language and had no fully formed one to imitate, their achievement is powerful evidence that the human mind comes equipped with a capacity to create language, and that young children in particular drive the growth of grammatical structure.”
Estimated band score for this test
Your raw score out of 13 scaled to the 40-question IELTS Reading (Academic) conversion table. This is the same estimate the practice page shows after you submit. A single passage is a small sample, so treat it as a guide.
| Correct answers | Estimated band |
|---|---|
| 13 / 13 | 9.0 |
| 12 / 13 | 8.5 |
| 11 / 13 | 7.5 |
| 10 / 13 | 7.0 |
| 9 / 13 | 6.5 |
| 8 / 13 | 6.0 |
| 7 / 13 | 5.5 |
| 5–6 / 13 | 5.0 |
| 4 / 13 | 4.0 |
| 3 / 13 | 3.5 |
| 2 / 13 | 3.0 |
| 1 / 13 | 2.0 |
| 0 / 13 | 0.0 |
Full-test score? Use the IELTS band calculator.
Tips for the question types in this test
Matching Information
- Read each statement and identify exactly what kind of information you are looking for — a reason, a result, an example, a definition, a contrast.
- Note that the statements do NOT follow paragraph order, so treat each one as an independent search.
Common trap: Assuming the questions run in order — they do not, which makes linear reading inefficient.
Full Matching Information strategySentence Completion
- Circle the word limit before reading anything else.
- Predict the missing word class: noun, verb, adjective, number or short phrase.
Common trap: Exceeding the word limit.
Full Sentence Completion strategyMultiple Choice — Multiple Answers
- Underline exactly how many answers are required.
- Locate the relevant passage section and read its full scope.
Common trap: Choosing too many or too few answers.
Full Multiple Choice — Multiple Answers strategyPractise “The Birth of Nicaraguan Sign Language” under exam conditions
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